NCIS Takes On Sexual Assault

(Trigger warning: sexual assault)

Buckle up, folks; this is gonna be a tough one. Tuesday’s
episode of NCIS addressed the topic
of sexual assault in the military. At times, the dialogue came off as a bit
preachy, but overall, I applaud the writers of NCIS for choosing to address this
growing problem.

I appreciated the way NCIS
portrayed the junior officer who’d been sexually assaulted. She doesn’t want to
press charges, she changes her story, and she runs the gamut of emotions from
fear to anger to suspicion. I liked the fact that she admitted to having been
out partying, enjoying a few drinks that night, and not really remembering what
happened, and knowing that her assaulter was someone she knew. I like that the
writers included these details because these things happen in real life.

Life isn’t tied up into a nice, tidy little package. Crimes
aren’t always committed by that big, scary thug. Sometimes the people we trust
do awful things. Sometimes people don’t make the best choices-or even good choices.
Sometimes, you do everything right, but still find yourself in a bad situation.
The situation never justifies sexual assault, a message that NCIS clearly delivered.

During one of the more preachy exchanges in the episode,
Bishop mentions how bad the number of sexual assault cases in the military is.
But what do those numbers really look like?

According to Department of Defense’s Annual
Report on Sexual Assault in the Military for fiscal year 2012, 6.1% of
women and 1.2% of active duty personnel reported unwanted sexual contact. At
first glance, those numbers don’t seem particularly alarming. However, when you break down the numbers, you
begin to see how big of a problem this really is.

Approximately 1.4
million personnel serve on active duty. Of those 1.4 million, approximately
204,000 are women. That means that approximately 12,240 (6.1%) active duty
servicewomen reported unwanted sexual contact in the DOD’s survey. Of the 1.2
million men on active duty, approximately 11,960 (1.2%) reported some form of unwanted
sexual contact. Let that sink in for a second: approximately 12,240 women and
11,960 men, in one year, said they had experienced some form of unwanted sexual
contact. 67% of those women and 81% of those men did NOT report the unwanted
sexual contact either to military or civilian authorities.

The victim’s troubles don’t end after the assault. If they
choose to report the crime and if they have enough evidence, they can bring it
to trial.

NCIS never shows
the accused going to trial; that’s just not within the scope of the show. Typically,
though, the team lines up enough evidence or gets a confession which all but
means the bad guy is going to prison. But in this episode, Gibbs shows that the
alleged perpetrator was assigned to the same boats as 9 separate women, all of
whom were sexually assaulted in the same way. This circumstantial evidence is all that Gibbs
presents against the alleged criminal. At the end of the show, the team
celebrates as though they just put a rapist behind bars when in reality, it
would be very difficult to prove the allegations in court with the evidence
they have.

Whether intentionally or not, the ending shows just how
difficult it is to administer justice in these cases. A lot of times the
evidence just isn’t there. Combine that with the several scandals
regarding how the military has
handled sexual assault cases, and you realize how difficult it is to prosecute
these crimes. The military relies heavily on a strict chain of command; crimes get
reported to your commanding officer. But what do you do when your commanding
officer is the one who assaulted you? What do you do when your commander doesn’t
believe you and refuses to hear your case or pass it up the chain of command?

Please understand that this post cannot thoroughly address
the issue of sexual assault in the military nor is it meant to. I encourage you
to do your own research on this issue. Because enough is enough already.

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